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Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip have arrested 120 men after an explosion killed five Hamas members and a girl, the group’s officials said. The cause of the explosion on Friday night was not immediately known, but Hamas blamed the Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, accusing it of collaborating with Israel.

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Hamas security forces in the Gaza Strip have arrested 120 men after an explosion killed five Hamas members and a girl, the group’s officials said.

The cause of the explosion on Friday night was not immediately known, but Hamas blamed the Fatah movement of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, accusing it of collaborating with Israel.

Fatah denied any involvement in the “mysterious explosion”, which badly damaged the car belonging to the dead men.

A senior Fatah official confirmed Hamas security forces arrested more than 100 Fatah members on Saturday and raided party offices across Gaza, confiscating computers and documents.

Overnight, heavy fighting took place in Gaza’s Tel al-Hawa district, where Hamas members confronted the family of a man they sought to arrest, exchanging fire and volleys of rocket-propelled grenades.

“This criminal act proves that the call for dialogue from Ramallah [Abbas’ headquarters] was a lie designed to throw sand in our eyes and conceal a conspiracy to kill and assassinate and terrorise our security forces,” Hamas said in a statement on Saturday.

Fatah responded by saying it had “no link whatsovever with internal disputes within Hamas,” and accused elements within the armed wing of Hamas of planting explosives as part of an internal conflict.

Explosion

The five men killed in the blast were members of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ armed wing.

Up to 20 other people were said to have been wounded in the blast, medical officials said, most of them on their way to the beach.

Al Jazeera’s Ashraf Amritti, reporting from the Gaza Strip, said that Iyad al-Hayya, the nephew of Khalil al-Hayya, a prominent Hamas leader, was among the dead.

Amar Mosbeh, a senior leader of Hamas’s military wing, was also killed.

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades blamed “members of the fugitive party” - a term which usually refers to Fatah.

“We have information that some elements are planning to carry out bombings against the interests and leaders of Hamas in order to sow anarchy,” Khalil al-Hayya said.

Hamas called on Gaza residents to turn out in their masses for the funerals of those killed, who would be buried following noon prayers on Saturday.

Further arrests

The Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades also said that several suspects outside of Fatah had been arrested in the Gaza Strip without giving further details.

Among those seized was a cameraman for German television ARD, Sawah Abu Safeh, Palestinian officials said.

The explosion, the third of its kind in a day, marked one of the biggest flare-ups in internal Gaza violence since Hamas forced out Fatah to seize control of the territory a year ago.

The factional violence has eclipsed Israeli-Palestinian fighting in Gaza, where an Egyptian-brokered truce has largely held since last month despite some violations on both sides.

The ceasefire stoked occasional intra-Palestinian tensions as Hamas has sought to prevent other groups from firing rockets across the border into Israel.aljazeera

, Voice of a Nation

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